FreeCAD BIM development news
yorik.uncreated.net
yorik.uncreated.net
"This last month we also had a hectic turnover, because Autodesk changed the terms of the free version of their Fusion360. There is a full load of new limitations that restrain much the use for personal/hobby users. For example, the g-code you export from Fusion360 to CNC machines (that cut objects out of a block of material), is now making the machine running slower (and therefore raising the production costs), for no apparent reason other than nagging the users into buying a subscription. As a result, we saw a massive migration of users to FreeCAD, and it's really thrilling to see people discovering FreeCAD and learning it and liking it."
Seems also to be reflected in contributions: https://twitter.com/FreeCADNews/status/1321931951658422284
"We'd like to take a moment to congratulate all the new devs that are stepping up lately to submit fixes for the #FreeCAD project. Thx for leaning in! The commit log is becoming quite diverse and exciting to follow"
Limited access to features is one thing, artificially injected breakage is another.
A person or company that behaves that way is not someone I want to deal with and not a tactic I want to reward with success.
I would rather pay even more to have open source developers work on honest problems.
Seems like “how quickly they need the job run” is a good compromise. For commercial use time is money, for a hobbyist something taking a bit longer is pretty inconsequential.
The alternative you’d suggest is just to cut the hobbyists off. How is that better?
When I'm going to find an architect, that's going to make a project of my house, I will specifically look for companies that use FOSS software, even though it probably will narrow pool of available contractors by a lot. I mean it is going to be MY HOUSE, something I plan to live in for many years (in my case I like to wait longer, build a house exactly the way I want it, and live for the rest of life in it). I want to buy project and "own" the project in a sense to be able to open it and modify.
I also want to be able to simulate the heck out of MY future home before it's build. Using fast computers we have today I can try different sizes, shapes and properties of windows, walls and doors, adjust heating, cooling, plumbing, airflow, home automations and countless other things. I can see how the sun would enter the home (https://floyd.lbl.gov/radiance/) before foundations are laid. Sure, most people don't want to do that and that's okay. Most people also don't want to look at the source of programs they are using. I do and even when I don't, I love to have this possibility open.
I understand, that so far Autodesk dominated the architecture software, but since they are moving/moved to subscription-based plans I hope that more and more architects will move away from subscription-based software. For their own good. I wouldn't gamble tools of my trade on something that can be taken away from me any moment and hope they also wouldn't.
FreeCAD BIM & company work to make it possible and for that I am very grateful. It would be great if in next decades we would have something like open source catalogue of great solutions in home building.
I think the rise of FreeCad is good for amateurs or part-time architects, and I hope one day it can rival others in the industry, like blender did for modeling, sculpting, composing and FXs. But when it comes to BIM, I'd rather have an architect that uses Autocad than one that uses subpar tools.
Revit is probably closer to what you meant, but I have no idea how the quality of the drawing tool would affect the quality of the architects output.
Construction design tools are all more or less old and crufty. For the love of god, someone please disrupt the industry.
The domain is shallow but complex. Open source is probably not the answer - but open tools most certainly won't hurt.
Insanity.
I now use ArchiCAD which is focused on Open IFC as the interchange format. It’s not perfect but it’s a good step. Once data interchange works then mixing in more specialized tools for certain tasks becomes easier so FreeCAD wouldn’t have to compete with the entire Revit toolset all at once.
My arguments for non-subscription based software for architects (but in general all professionals that heavily rely on software) are rather along the lines: if you are banned or support for the service you use stops you are basically left holding the baby.
Its not true for locally run programs (unless they have some expiration keys or something) whether commercial or free. The former are even better since you don't need to worry about eg. breaking changes if the foss tool uses version control system (you can always git revert to release that worked with what you need to do).
I only argue that leaning on paid subscription/service-based software for key part of your professional work/craft is asking for trouble.
First up is I would strongly encourage you to keep all the pieces of the project separate in your thinking. In residential construction you're buying a printed drawing set and printed specification manual with architectural stamps on it - for commercial and high end construction, the product can be a BIM model but residential architects won't have experience delivering that product so it will take some research. The contractor is providing physical materials arranged into a house matching the plans and specs from the architect.
Just to give you an understanding of the precise basis of the current process, the dominant contract under which owner-architect relationships is governed is the B101 (https://content.aia.org/sites/default/files/2017-04/B101_201...) with some more sophisticated relationships described here https://www.aia.org/articles/210481-selecting-the-right-owne... . The legal standard for owner-contractor relationships is the A101 https://help.aiacontracts.org/public/wp-content/uploads/2020... The A101 and B101 together implicitly create the architect contractor relationship through drawings and specifications.
You can and should take as much control as you want over that process but just have it clear in your mind what the products are. The house you're going to live in will not be better or worse based on the means of creation but rather the product. Some methods will give you a better end result more efficiently, but many paths will lead to a wonderful, high quality home that you is exactly how you want.
What you will gain by controlling means of creation is the ability to control the drawings in the future if you want to make changes or repairs. BIM models are now delivered to clients in commercial projects because they offer great power for maintenance and energy use control in the future.
Relating to your interest in simulation and generative design: The easiest way to get into generative design right now is Rhino with Grasshopper. If you're primarily interested in energy simulation then adding in the DIVA plugin would help too. Grasshopper's built-in functions can handle the geometry simulation already. Grasshopper support Python as well, if you're fluent. Revit + Dynamo is relevant due to Revit's market dominance. Those are the standards to which FreeCAD's tools will be held, both in ease of use and power of output. Additionally, any unbiased rendering engine can simulate daylight for you.
I'm not aware of anyone using FreeCAD, but it's on my radar as something to look into over time. I currently professionally use Archicad, I have used Revit, and I have used Rhino and AutoCAD. Training on new software is very time consuming and switching for a single project would guarantee a loss for the architect if the traditional 10-12% of construction cost is used as the fee. If any of my firms had to use a new software and make money on a single project the cost would be about double.
I would suggest you aim at working with someone local to you since there are such wide differences between how things are done in different markets. Also try to get the contractor and architect on board early and together if you want the most control on the outcome. In commercial construction that's "design build" or "integrated project delivery", more or less. It will be hard to achieve that integration in residential construction but money talks and if you offer to pay the architect hourly and pay the contractor hourly for pre-construction services then you have a chance of achieving you dream process, but at a higher cost.
I wish more of the industry worked how you envision. I'm hoping to work toward that goal myself. Good luck when it eventually happens for you!
Regarding part about contracts. I live in Europe, so I'll look into local code about agreement between architect, owner and contractor. I suppose they are quite a lot differences between USA and Europe (not to mention European countries themselves).
Generative design is very interested for me as I am generally into optimisation problems. Ability to interact with design programatically is also first priority. I'll look into Rhino + Grasshopper. It looks nice, but as I mentioned in other comment I'd prefer my tools to be free if I'm going to learn them (I generally think that 3D/parametric drawing is becoming important skill nowadays, even outside architecture/engineering). I also have an engineering physics degree, so writing a solver for some building physics is not out of the scope, therefore my bias towards FreeCAD.
I surely understand that cost of switching would make it a loss if standard fee is applied. Billing hour is absolutely fine by me. Thanks for the tip about getting contractor and architect on board early and together.
To add some details I have the site and I'm not in a hurry at all, since there is already one house on that property, already built. I also have rough idea how it should be placed, look and function. At the moment it's more of a hobby project than true need to build a house.
If you already have your site and you have a lot of time then I can say that one of the most productive ways of designing is through mapping. Guy Debord's map of Paris is an extremely subjective example, and at the other end of the spectrum might be to overlay a grid of half meter intervals all over the site and measure somewhat precisely some physical phenomena - the angle of view to various points of interest, or perhaps how loud ambient sounds are, or the sun exposure in hours, or any number of things. Putting these maps together can result in emergent designs or at least bring about considerations that maybe weren't foremost in your mind about siting, window placement, or program location. Of course, the most important map is the terrain map, tree placement height and canopy size, and rock placement, the more detailed the better.
Hopefully one day someone will compete with Rhino + Grasshopper in open source. At least the maker of Rhino has the OpenNurbs toolkit to develop geometry translators, so that's something. It does look like an exciting time to learn FreeCAD and I hope it goes well for you.
There's nothing really definite about generative design in literature yet, but there has been some useful stuff published. One of the more impressive researchers I've ever heard of is Achim Menges http://www.achimmenges.net working with the University of Stuttgart on biomimicry and optimized structures. Very cool stuff.
Also if you don't yet you might visit Archdaily regularly and check out what the industry is doing. Perhaps something will inspire you.
I am not an architect, but I would second this based on my experience with 3D modeling and having to dabble in AutoCAD at times. The learning curve for this type of software is steep, so steep that it is almost generational. In other worlds, it takes a new generation to come up using something else for the market factors to change.
Having done both, 3D and dev work, I would argue switching 3D packages is harder than getting up to productive speed on a new language and it's stack. This is why Blender has taking so long to get uptake and adoption by the industry.
The issue at hand is it is really frustrating to be able to do quality 3D work in one software package and then in another you can't do anything but get basic shaped on the screen. Compounding this is these packages are almost all keyboard based when you get to a power user level. Switching package means all that muscle memory just evaporates. When I was doing simulation we were on 3D Studio Max and there was an initiative to move to Alias/Wavefront (now Maya). We lost a significant amount of productivity over the next 6 months. The only reason the 3D artist switched was because it was a company wide initiative. They were happy afterwards as Wavefront had some features did not have at the time, but it was painful.
This makes me sad. I've worked on quite a few commercial engineering projects over the years where one GUI toolkit has been taken up after another and then discarded because of various limitations, particularly the difficulty of solid integration with 3D viewports. Most of the projects have been research projects that only lasted a few years but we've been through wxWidgets, WPF, Qt, JavaFx, now React & friends and none of them have left us saying "hey, let's use that same one next time".
I wonder if these types of engineering applications would be much better off going the Blender route and rolling their own GUI, or using a GUI which puts rendering first. I'm reminded of the article about using Godot for GUIs posted on HN early this month[1].
The main complaint seems to be accessibility which seems silly to be discussing for inherently visual applications.
It was impossible to fathom any widespread exodus from these standards, given the massive corporate backing on an already complex software ecosystem with a deep legacy. It seemed, at the time, unlikely that any competitors, and certainly not open source or free solutions, would ever gain competitive standing in industry versus the entrenched Autodesk solutions.
Has this changed?
Is it as nice/easy to use? Not quite. Although Qt is pretty good on some Linux flavours and Windows. With more donations, I'm sure this could improve, too.
But on a deeper level, the feature set is large/mind-boggling, and I think this is a problem for adoption for a specific use-case like FDM/FFF/3d printing design, but also in general for software quality and software development.
For example, some workbenches work better than others - one even straight up threw a classic Python 3 error, "bytes required, not str". This can be mitigated to a certain extent by disabling workbenches you don't need [0]. But it feels like a jack of all trades, master of none situation.
What are the alternatives? I don't know. OpenSCAD basically has no editing GUI and a bizarre language. Fusion 360 still works, even though it's clear Autodesk will continue to squeeze it (not only the non-commercial restrictions, but the significant price in 2018 if i'm remembering correctly). Blender is great, and boolean tools are improving, but it isn't parametric, and the non-destructive workflow is unusual.
[0] https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Interface_Customization#Workbenc...
I recently discovered https://github.com/aachman98/Sorcar which looks intriguing but there is UI friction with these workflows and node-based systems offer power but add clutter and complexity.
I wish a non-destructive modifier stack was front and center in Blender. I know it's in there but it's not the primary focus and that hurts UX.
There is a learning curve to it, as the interface and a lot of the paradigms are different than what is typical of other design tools. I've had to humble myself and follow through a lot of video tutorials (Joko Engineering is pretty good https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h1ofkRFdeI). I'm then re-modeling some simple projects just to assure myself that I can replicate what I've done before (for example, https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4616582/files). Some aspects of it seem fairly unfriendly initially, but the experience smooths out once you grok the approach. I'm so used to using Solidworks that I kind of forget what it was like to first learn how to use parametric modelers.